Spotlight on Michael Crichton’s Awards and Accolades

Michael Crichton received many prestigious awards and accolades over the course of his career: an Oscar, an Emmy, an Edgar and a Peabody, to name a few. Acknowledging the huge impact of Michael Crichton’s work through Jurassic Park and The Lost World, the scientific community designated a new species of dinosaur named after him called the Crichtonsaurus Bohlini, and he was called one of Hollywood’s Most Beautiful People by People Magazine! The awards and recognitions Michael Crichton received only begin to illustrate the impact he had in so many different areas of entertainment, science and popular culture.

Awards for ER

George Foster Peabody Award for ER in 1994

FROM THE AWARD: “The gut-wrenching experiences and pressure-packed moments which mark emergency medicine are captured with accuracy and immediacy in this innovative series. By shattering the conventions of television narrative with dynamic production techniques and characterizations, ER recreates the environment of the urban emergency room. Viewers gain insight into the determination needed to save lives under trying conditions as well as the vulnerability which often marks the personal relationships of medical practitioners. Exceptional writing explores the personality of each character while top-notch production techniques create an emergency room panorama that is simultaneously highly realistic and stylistically unconventional. Special mention is made of executive producers Michael Crichton and John Wells; co-executive producers Mimi Leder, Robert Nathan, Lydia Woodward; co-producers Chris Chulack and Paul Manning; and the excellent cast, including Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Sherry Stringfield, Noah Wyle, Julianna Margulies and Eriq La Salle. For capturing the drama of contemporary emergency medicine with particular skill, a Peabody to ER.”

Best Dramatic Series Emmy for ER in 1996

ER received 124 nominations from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which makes it the most nominated drama program in history.

Writer’s Guild of America Award, Best Long Form Television Script of 1995 for ER

Michael Crichton received this WGA award for the pilot screenplay for ER.

Technical Achievement Academy Award

In 1995, Michael Crichton, Jack C. Smith and Emil Safier were awarded a Technical Achievement Academy Award for “pioneering computerized motion picture budgeting and scheduling. The early work of these men demonstrated the practicality of motion picture budgeting and scheduling on small computers.”

Crichtonsaurus

Scientists at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences named a new ankylosaurus species ‘Crichtonsaurus’ after Michael Crichton, who’s book Jurassic Parkhelped make dinosaurs one of the most popular scientific subjects. Crichtonsaurus is a genus of dinosaur. It was a thyreophoran, specifically an ankylosaur and it lived during the late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils were discovered in China, and it was formally described by Dong Zhiming in 2002. There are now two different Crichtonsaurus’:

The original type species is Crichtonsaurus bohlini and it was named in honor of Mr. Crichton and Birger Bohlin, a Swedish paleontologist who studied ankylosaurs of China.

A second species, Crichtonsaurus benxiensis, was named in 2007 by Lü Junchang and colleagues in 2007 for a skull and partial skeleton from rocks of the early Late Cretaceous-age (Cenomanian-Turonian) Sunjiawan Formation of Beipiao, Liaoning.

The Hit Man

Michael Crichton was featured on the cover of Time magazine in the September 25, 1995 issue. In the article, titled “Mr. Wizard” writer Gregory Jaynes says:

“Crichton built his success out of his understanding of and passion for science, technology, art, entertainment and commerce. He is one of those high-end, abstract-thinking machines, keen on contemporary social issues but able to make his interests drive book and ticket sales. That pejorative expression that has so much currency—“obviously written with a movie in mind”—requires qualification when applied to Crichton. “I think of Michael as the high priest of high concept,” says Spielberg. All right, concept: Island. Theme Park. Dinosaurs. Adults swallowed whole. Kids in peril. Easy. But who said the author had to give us the history of computers along with it? And chaos theory? Fractal vs. Euclidean geometry? And the workings of a Stegosaurus gizzard? So much DNA it’s a wonder Crichton hasn’t been called as an expert witness in the O.J. trial.

“He’s the only writer I know who has footnotes in his fiction,” says Frank Marshall, who directed Congo. Raves Spielberg: “He has maybe the richest imagination of anybody I know. And he grounds his fantasy in such contemporary technical reality that he can make the reader swallow just about anything.”

In His Own Words

I thought the cover was great, and I thought Greg Jaynes wrote a really nice article. I was very impressed. And also sort of amazed. You know, I personally think the cover of Time is a very big deal. It means a lot more to me than all sorts of other stuff. So it’s pretty amazing that I’m on it. I really appreciated it, not only because when I read it, it seemed like somebody I know. And often, you know, those stories just feel really alien. You think, “how could they think that about me?” This one I thought was pretty much right.

Michael Crichton on the cover of Time magazine
“Mr. Wizard” by Gregory Jaynes
September 25, 1995

One of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World

In the May 4, 1992 issue, People magazine named Michael Crichton one of it’s Most Beautiful People in the World. And we quote:

“He’s 6’9″ with piercing blue eyes and a choirboy face, but all of that is beside the point to him. “I think being successful is attractive,” says the 50-year-old writer. By that standard, he’s now sitting pretty indeed, with Rising Sun, his novel about U.S.-Japanese tensions, a best-seller. It’s hardly the first: 11 Crichton books, from 1969’s The Andromeda Strain to his 1990 dinosaurs-run-amok epic Jurassic Park, have solidified his reputation as the king of the serious thriller.”

Michael Crichton, People magazine, 1992.

#1 Hits

Michael Crichton remains the only person to simultaneously have the number one book, film and television series in a given year. He achieved this twice in his career, once in 1995 and then again in 1996.

#1 Book in 1995

#1 Movie in 1995

#1 Television Show in 1995

#1 Book in 1996

#1 Movie in 1996

#1 Television Show in 1996

Thanks for visiting The Official Site of Michael Crichton where we celebrate the life and works of writer and filmmaker Michael Crichton.